Mother May I Craft S'more: September 2012

This week has been a new experience for us. Last Wednesday we had a unique day to say the least. We put our Irish Setter, Abigail, down after she was having numerous health issues. Then later that afternoon we closed on our new house!!! It was hard to celebrate the closing and be excited when we had to go through the loss of our first baby! Abigail was a great dog! She came from the pound, and we could never figure out why someone would get rid of such a wonderful dog. When she passed away we believe she was about 9 years old. We don't know for sure so we went with the guess from the vet. We also have a 2 year old (puppy) German Shepherd Bloodhound mix; Piper. The first several days without Abigail we were keeping an extra close eye on Piper. She would walk out on the step and look for Abi under the tree where she always laid. For a few days, she didn't want to be outside for more than 5 minutes. This is just not Pipe!!! She has two of the strongest noses combined into one dog, so she was always tracking moles and catching birds. After a week of special attention, Piper seems to be doing much better!! We have already noticed the change in her. She seems to have grown up over night. She is calmer and a lot less aggressive now that there is no competition. It has been a week and there is still a bone laying on the floor in the living room. When Abigail was here they each had their own and never put it down!! Now she is just trying to keep it away from Isaiah!!!!
Speaking of Isaiah, we knew that he wouldn't remember Abigail when he is older, but we haven't noticed him looking for her now. I thought it would take longer, but Isaiah seems to not care that it's just him and his best buddy Piper!!! He always liked Abigail, but with her being an older dog she never had the energy to play with him like Piper does.
Ben and I are doing okay with Abi being gone as well. Every once and a while we bring her up and laugh at how heavy she used to breath. We don't miss that noise!!!! Ben buried her by his family's pond near their old dog, Gator. He was a Rottweiler. We have been down there a few times to see her tree branch grave marker, but we are also farm kids, and we don't get hung up on the emotions of losing a dog!!! Guess that comes from raising your own steers, pigs, chickens, turkeys, and rabbits, and knowing they were going to market. (Well the bunnies we took to Grandpa Oman's to run around his farm although rabbit meat does taste good.)
We are looking forward to only dealing with training one dog over at the new house. With moving, Isaiah only being 1 (almost his birthday is 9/11), and a new baby coming in April, we are honestly relieved to have one less thing to worry about! But we are going to miss Abigail, she was a gentle giant with a mean bark!!!